Not inviting someone to a party

From one of my top articles, called How To Get Invited To A Party, you may grasp which social tactics to use in order to deal with an issue of not being invited to parties.

This time let’s consider the opposite situation. You are a host, and you do not want to invite someone to your party.

Obviously, you have only two ways out of this condition: either invite that person or not to invite that person.

Here are pros and cons of each option.

Not to invite:

The advantage of this choice is clear: that person will not come to your party. However, there are some unpleasant disadvantages you should pay attention to.

First one is that the person, essentially, may get offended by your rejection. Depending on the person’s character, s/he may not reveal it. However, be ready to explain why you are not inviting that person to your party. The best explanation I can think of right now, is to tell that person, that s/he will be bored by people you’re going to invite, and by party overall. Not sure if it’s the best option under your circumstances, but it may work out. If the person continues to insist, well, as a tactful man you will have no choice but to let that person come.

By the way, there’s a workaround in this case. You may suggest the person to come to another party you are throwing. If the party you’re arranging is birthday party, you may consider breaking it in several… “episodes”. Arrange one party for each group you are in. For example, for some time I was well in two separate groups of friends. However, it would be a disaster to arrange one birthday party for both groups as they were quite different in a lot of ways. So I simply split my birthday into two parties: one for each group.

Another “trick” is not to tell that person about the party. There is a smell of cheating in the air, but most people do it. The problem is that if you and that person have mutual friends, those friends may tell him/her that you’re throwing a party, which will result in embarrassing situation. Again, depending on the person you don’t want to invite, s/he either will nurse a grievance against you, or will ask you about the party and invitation openly.

Invite:

OK, now let’s talk about what actually happens if you invite that person. I do not know true reasons why you don’t want that friend of yours to be at your party, so I’ll just try to guess.

Will that person look immature comparatively to other guests? Does s/he act in a way that does not match your other friends’ regular style of interacting? Perhaps, making a fool of him/herself? Like that guy, who climbed up the tree, from the Transformers movie? Maybe s/he tells lame jokes you do not want other persons to listen to?

You’re afraid that it will make harm to the party, your friends will be irritated. But do you actually worry about your friends being dissatisfied? No. You worry about yourself: you don’t want your social status in this group to be harmed.

How do you think it will affect you personally? Do you feel in charge of that friend’s behavior? You do not want to invite that person, not actually because of that person, but because you do not want your other friends, whose opinions are important to you, to think about you in a negative way. Maybe you are thinking that they will project your friend’s silly behavior onto you?

That’s all completely understandable. But let me tell you from my experience that a high chance is that the unwelcome guest, who plays the fool when you are one on one, will correct his/her behavior.

If s/he is really no match for the people who gathered for the party (no common interest to discuss, different sense of humor), that guy or girl will likely be silent all evening long, get bored in the first hour, figure out that s/he doesn’t fit in (as you warned him/her) and make a decision to leave. However, s/he may stay a little later in order not to offend the host (i.e., you).

Of course, every case is unique. Despite all the statistics there’s still a chance something unexpected will occur. For example, that person you were avoiding to invite may start confronting the other guest. Once I invited a guy, who was not among my closest friends, but still interesting person to talk to. So I thought that he would add “something new and fresh” to the party. And he started arguing with my other (close) friend, insulting him. Well, that was kind of uncomfortable situation. He left in an hour or so. I just said something like “Sorry, I didn’t expect that from him”, but I do not think my friends needed any excuses from me anyway. The incident was immediately forgotten.

“Blah-blah-blah… I’m fed up with your theoretical reasoning, now what should I do?”

Keep calm and…

If the person is just an acquaintance, feel free to choose and use any described above method.

However, if that person is your true friend, then I would recommend you invite him/her to the party, despite any doubts and fears you may keep inside. I did the opposite several times. Now I regret about it. So learn from my mistakes, not yours 😉

22 thoughts on “Not inviting someone to a party”

What happens when you want to have a sleepover with your “real” friends and not that annoying neighbor you have to invite ever freaken everywhere! Plzzzz, I don’t want to hurt his feelings!! Plz help :(🆘

I’ve been trying to avoid parties with relatives all because of this one person among them who I’d like to have nothing to do with (for many good reasons). And I don’t mean close relatives, more like a bit distant relatives, but we’ve lived in the same town for most of our lives so many of us see each other a lot. Yet this ver same “horrible” person is the one who most likes parties and is constantly putting up some (I believe there is a narcissistic behaviour slightly involved).

Many people expect me to throw up a birthday party next year. Well this time I think I would like to as well, but that one person (who most likely will be most excited about it) is not to be invited. I don’t want to hurt anyones feelings. Should I skip a party, yet again? Guess I could go throw it out of town, somewhere far enough and yet be open about it 🙂

Wait a sec, you want to skip your birthday party because of that one person?! Just don’t invite him. I don’t want to insult you and I don’t. You act like a victim in this case. Please google: victim psychology.

Hi! My problem is not that I don’t want to invite this person but I literally can’t! I already had a hard time getting my parents to let me invite 6 people and she was on my list since the beginning but I have strict parents and they are not letting me invite someone else … I really don’t want to hurt her because she’s a very good friend of mine and I doubt it that if she gets hurt, she would tell me.

“You’re afraid that it will make harm to the party, your friends will be irritated. But do you actually worry about your friends being dissatisfied? No. You worry about yourself: you don’t want your social status in this group to be harmed.”

This is where the author lost all credibility by making assumptions that may only be true for the author and generalizing those assumptions for all the readers. I don’t give a fuck about “social status.” As Eminem once said in “Not Afraid”, “I’m not afraid (I’m not afraid) to take a stand (to take a stand) Everybody (everybody) Come take my hand (come take my hand).” Just like Eminem, I’m not afraid, certainly not afraid of making a tough yet needed judgment call. Of course, you’ve obviously never met people who could single-handedly ruin entire parties, or else you wouldn’t be saying such absurd things. Any wise human being would know better than to make that same mistake twice. For example, Ted Mosby in “How I Met Your Mother,” made that mistake, and look where that got him? He invited his ex-girlfriend to his wedding, which directly resulted in the disastrous outcome of getting left at the altar. Old Mosby said, “Don’t ever invite an ex to your wedding.” For a real life example, consider Bryan Cranston’s stalker ex-girlfriend. Only a person devoid of any common sense whatsoever would invite a stalker ex-girlfriend to a party, especially the kind that Bryan dealt with. As of now, there are 7 billion people on this planet, so by sheer statistics alone, there are bound to be plenty of people who would ruin your parties if you invited them. And for the stalkers, inviting them once is the last mistake you’ll ever make since you’ll be hard-pressed to stop them from suddenly appearing at parties and other events uninvited, possibly with malicious intentions. (Yes, this type of stalker exists. If you don’t believe me, read Bryan Cranston’s memoir.) Hence, this is why some of the advice on your blog is so unfounded and nonsensical that it’s actually better to not have been exposed to it in the first place.

I have a similar situation to the one you mentioned where I have a couple different friends do groups that would be something of a disaster together. I tend to fall politically middle ground so I have extremist friends on both sides of the spectrum that I would be very uncomfortable putting in one room together but I don’t know that I can feasibly host 2 separate full blown birthday parties. And the reason for the party being my birthday would confine them to one insane weekend. Any suggestions?

I’m having a mini prank party my friends and I want to throw, me and my bestfriend are in a tight group of 7, there is one of them I’m not inviting (she’s bullied me for years) but there’s this one girl that has remained completely neutral in the group, anyways, she’s nice to me, but she’s really annoying tbh, and NEVER lets us do things that aren’t very strictly by the rules, and while we don’t want to do anything bad, we just want to have a relaxed time, and there are occasional times some of the others let a swear word slip, and we don’t want to make her uncomfortable, but we also don’t want her to lecture us, can I not invite her somehow? Or keep her from knowing about the party??

Ok, but say I literally CANT invite them, because of transport or something. My dumb friends told them my exciting plans and now they’re telling me that they’re gonna get wonderful presents for me and I’m feeling more guilty than EVER! Now what?

Hi, one of my friends within my social group who is not particularly liked by the rest of the group has decided to have a party for New Years, and due to a recent argument they have decided to invite the whole group that I’m in except me plus more people from our year group. I don’t really want to spend New Years at home and I know that the girl is just being petty and if I told my group that I was having a New Years get together aswell they would come to mine over hers. However I don’t want the person to have no people come to her party as I will feel really bad. What should I do?

so there is a girl that i am friends with and she is nice and evrything but my parents don’t like her parents so therefore they dont want her coming, they don’t us to be friends and i’m ok with that…. but i’m inviting a few of her friends, that are my good friends… idk what to do cause i can’t invite her but i don’t want her to be mad at me and for her friends to be mad, WHAT DO I DOOOOO??

so I’m having a birthday party, and I am inviting some of my closest friends. I have another super close friend that I enjoy inviting to things, but she can get a little crazy for my taste. I want to invite her to my party, but if I do things will go completely downhill because she does not get along with some of my close friends. I want to invite her, but I don’t wanna make anyone feel uncomfortable. I have friends who say I should invite her, and friends who don’t want anything to do with her. I don’t think I’m going to invite her, but I am very nervous what will happen if I don’t.

I have a friend whom I have invited to my house parties a few times. I like this person but her behavior is embarrassing and inappropriate she, yes she, sexual vulgar language that would put a sailor to shame, once alcohol is involved it gets worse. Last party she came to here.
The following day I was accused of telling my best friend her personal business. I never did this, I would not do this to anyone. It was a big blow out.

I have asked her to not talk like that when we have our get togethers with friends and her statement was… I don’t care what others think of me. I said, I care. This was said before this last party we had. This is a person that is in their 40’s. I know that there a hurt feeling but these guest are all professional people.

So, I have a small friend group of about 8 people, one of them is not the nicest, she is two faced. One minute she is nice and one minute she is mean. One friend of the group ageprees with me on that, but the rest are her friends. She made my bestie cry once. She also causes alot of drama and will probably invite some of her troublemaking friends of whom will just fight and ruin the party no matter what I tell her. I really don’t want any drama, just a nice get together with my friends. How should I tell her that I don’t want her there?mp Do i just ask my friends to hide it from her, because if tell her she’ll just turn her back on me, like she does every week. Please help!!!